The World as Meditation
by peridot3783
Summary: Fluffy post series twoshot. VM, reflecting on life and each other.
1. Meditation

Disclaimer: If I owned Trigun or Wallace Steven's poem _The World as Meditation_, letters from government departments bearing the phrase "the current balance of your student loan is…" would not fill me with the profound terror that it does. I'm not making any money off this either.

Disclaimer 2: This is the first time in a long time that I've actually written something that doesn't have footnotes or anything in parenthesis (yay!). This is my first fanfic, so be kind and forgive the OOC-ness. Or at least please be non-lethal.

* * *

Dimly, in the back of her mind, she knew it was morning. Rays of sunshine with the crisp cool of a desert night still clinging to them invaded her sleep, falling across her face with a gentle touch.

Meryl buried her nose into her pillow and refused to open her eyes. She smiled, inhaling the familiar scent of another person. Gunpowder, leather, soap, mixed with the warm, safe smells of a bakery.

She should get up, it was late and work needed to be done. But the heat touching her face, the gentle breaths against the exposed crook of her neck… Gunsmoke could wait. She smiled against the pillow, slightly lopsidedly, and one small hand started working its way along the bed, hidden by the covers. It inched its way into a patch of warm sheet, and stopped. There was nothing there.

So the world wasn't going to wait. Meryl reluctantly opened her eyes, confirming what her hand told her. The bed was empty. The breath on the back of her neck had only been a draught, his scent only lingered because the sheets had once been on his bed. And she was only make-believing that it was his head on the pillow next to her, and not the light of morning.

And he… he was not back yet.

The smile stayed on her face. He was coming back, she truly believed it. And in those few moments between sleeping and waking, she could feel it.

Shaking her head to clear it of such fancies, she slid out of bed. The suns were rising higher, she had responsibilities that needed attention and there were a multitude of tasks to be done. Later in the day she'd berate herself for such dreams, and then she'd frown with worry and fume with anger, letting it out on the customers.

The clink of plates and cutlery downstairs told her Milly was beginning to make herself breakfast, which meant Meryl really needed to get a move on. She grabbed the uniform hung with mathematical precision off the back of a chair, and began the tedious task of getting ready for the day.

She stood in the bathroom, combing her hair in front of the mirror, that same small smile tugging at the corners of her mouth. He would come back, and she would be there for him. No more masks, no need for hesitancy or loss. All that was needed for happiness was the two of them.

The brush stopped, and was set down with a small 'clink'.

"… Vash…"

Her business demeanour was put on like a cloak. She would not worry. That small moment where it felt like he was there was enough to sustain her. He was coming home.

* * *

This might be better if you read the poem that goes with it. I was intending to post it with the rest of this fic, but apparently that's against copyright (spoilsports). I found some random site with the poem on it if you want to find it without sifting through heaps of lit crit or bookselling sites.It's about Penelope, the wife ofUlysses (of Trojan Horse fame) imagining her husband coming home after thelongttime he's been at war- 20 years, 10 atTroy,10 years ofmisadventures on his way home.

(http/www. angelfire. com/rant/micaela97/poems)

I wrote thisbecause there are so many fics where Meryl's really stressed about Vash going away, and she seemed so confident that Vash was coming back, I figured I'd try one where she showed her confidence. I used the poem 'cos I like it, and I think Penelope and Meryl have some common personality traits – mostly 'barbarous strength'. It's why I think Meryl's a great character.

Wallace Stevens, the more-talented-than-me man who wrote this poem, is apparently the 'Poet of Connecticut', along with two other people. I don't know much about him but I have read some of his other poems. They're great, look 'em up and read if you are so inclined.


	2. Patience

To my reviewers Alder-Elma, buttercup22, Aine of Knockaine, RperQueen, and Celesma: BIG THANK YOU! You all rock! And since Aine suggested I write a second chapter, double credits for her!

Right. Second chapter. Longer, but not necessarily better. Warning: contains overly flowery bits. Blame essay-related stress.

This is actually the third rewrite of this story; it kept getting deleted by my flashdrive. By the way, always back up your flashdrive stuff on a hard drive, they're temperamental little buggers and prone to deleting large swathes of your essay the night before it's due.

I've tried to draw on Vash's more philosophical side, which is a little hard since you don't often see it, so it's ended up a bit OOC. Meh. Never mind, tell me what you think.

No poem this time, but if you want you can listen to the song 'Patience' by Guns n' Roses. And no, I don't claim credit for the song, either.

Disclaimer: Well, since I didn't own Trigun last chapter, what makes you think I'll own it now?

* * *

It was like being in a furnace. No, scratch that: it was like being in a furnace while carrying a body, with pants that chafed mightily _and_ several painful gunshot wounds. Vash stopped walking, and looked up at the suns. The heat was merciless this time of day – better take a rest, he decided. Getting dehydrated would do nobody any good. 

Knives slid off his shoulder with a muffled _whump_.

"Sorry" he muttered, a little insincerely.

He paused to spill a little water in his brother's mouth and take a drink. A broad smile was beginning to inch across Vash's face, almost unconsciously. If anyone but a comatose psychopath and a very disinterested feline was around, they would have marvelled at how the air around the world's most wanted man seemed to sparkle.

"You need to give them a chance, you know. There are some good people out there who deserve life. You'll meet some of them soon." A happy warmth coloured his words.

The dry rattle of sand in the wind was his only reply. The silence didn't fool him; unconscious or no, Vash could still feel his brother cataloguing a series of insults, injuries and idiocies to be used as evidence against him. Should he add more grist to the mill? Better not, if he was going to introduce his brother to the world.

He sat back, his mind drifting towards other things. There was an ache beginning to build in his chest that had absolutely nothing to do with his wounds. It had taken a very long time for him to recognise it as love. It had grown so slowly, creeping over him like… like a… a rash. Ha – the rash metaphor would be good for some Meryl-baiting. The thought bought her image to mind; small form taut with anger, face flushed, chest heaving, bristling like an offended cat.

Beautiful, yet scary.

Most people only saw her dedication, iron will and vicious temper, (he knew them well – after all, he'd been on the receiving end of all three), qualities that made her admirable but hard to like. Very few people ever saw that underneath was a soft, kind, and self-sacrificing woman with very deep feelings. Once he'd seen that part of her, keeping distance between them got harder and harder.

He sighed. Before, he'd worried Knives would find her and kill her because of her closeness to him. He'd held back because she would inevitably age and die while he would stay the same – immortality was cruel. He'd wander throughout the world forever, while those around him lived and died, their passing brief as geranium flowers…

But she'd shown him something about that the day he saw Rem in her.

"You once told me they weren't worth anything because their lives were so short," he said to the inert lump he called brother, "but you're wrong. They are important."

He stopped, remembering. Meryl's face. Rem's face. Both speaking the same words; love, peace, hope. One message across time.

"If you love someone," he continued, "they will never truly die. They'll live on inside you, in the people around you. Even though you'll have to let them go, they won't desert you."

Vash got the distinct impression his brother was entirely unimpressed by this discovery.

"No pleasing you, huh?"

He knew the little time he'd be able to spend with Meryl wouldn't be easy or enough. Even though he loved her, someone accepting and understanding, the great gulf of mortality still came between them.

Even with the price, she was still worth it.

That was the meaning of love and peace, right? Have patience and perseverance, and always keep the hope that you'll find love again in your heart.

He stood and stretched - time was moving on, and he had somewhere he needed to be. The black cat sitting on his brother was shooed away, and the dead weight of his brother resettled on his shoulder.

"Let's go home."

* * *

Little note: I thought that maybe you could take the bit where Vash sees Rem's face superimposed over Meryl's as Vash understanding that people don't abandon you when they die, that Rem hadn't abandoned him, that our loved ones live on in other people, and that Rem's ideas are still around and are making a difference. I also think that Rem's death was made far more traumatic because of the way she died, the fact that it was sudden, and it was Vash's first experience of death (which does make a difference). I thought that maybe this and the fact that Vash had just defeated his brother would give him a bit of a spur to seize the moment and find some happiness. I guess I belong to the 'better to love and loose than a lifetime of the unrequited stuff' school of thought. Hmm… I also waffle too much. 


End file.
